PRESENT CONTINUOUS

PRESENT CONTINUOUS TENSE

There are three main uses of the present continuous relating to our topic of talking about the present. 

The main use of the present continuous is to talk about actions or events that are temporary, not permanent, and actions or events that have started but are not finished.

a) these may be actions or events taking place at the moment of speaking, e.g. He’s playing football.

b) or they may be actions or events taking place around the moment of speaking but not necessarily in progress at the time of speaking. Also actions or events that take place for a limited period of time.

 They are selling everything for half usual price this week.

2    We also use the present continuous to talk about changes and situations or events that are developing even though the process may not be temporary

They are increasing the production of food because of the growth in the population. 

3   And the present continuous is used with particular time expressions (forever, always, constantly, continually) to talk about habitual actions. We use the present continuous when we want to show that the action is annoying or to stress the repetitiveness of the action

He’s always leaving the fridge door open.

We usually don’t use the present continuous with state verbs regardless of whether the state is permanent or current or temporary. For example, we can’t say: I’m not knowing the answer.